Social Housing - Labor Amendment

Full Chambers Meeting

Speech to Council Chambers, delivered by Councillor Seal Chong Wah on 17th February 2026

I rise to speak on the amendment to the Draft Resolution to decide to prepare amendments to Brisbane City Plan 2014 - Sandgate Centre - Suburban Renewal Precinct.

This LNP’s combined council housing and homelessness programs total budget was 0.08% of the total council 2025-26 budget. 

That’s less than one thousandth of this Council’s budget!

This Lord Mayor is spending 10 times more on his newsletter than on his major new homelessness initiative in this financial year - a token $500,000 one-off donation. 

While in the last 5 years, the social housing waitlist within the Brisbane City Council area has grown 18% to a staggering 11,500 10,000 people. 

While the housing crisis continues to get worse, this LNP Council’s refusal to create any new affordable housing strategies lacks compassion, integrity and any understanding of the actual housing crisis reality for many thousands of their own residents.

No affordable homes have been delivered under this LNP’s tokenistic voluntary planning mechanisms. 

An inclusive and livable community would house its homeless, and make sure everybody can afford their rent. 

Lets be clear Brisbane IS NOT an inclusive city. This LNP council is NOT building stronger communities. 

Good international benchmark policy ensures a quarter of new dwellings, about 25% are public or social housing. 

Genuine affordable public and community housing is the only way to guarantee people that are struggling can afford to live in this city.

Even the State’s Shaping SEQ regional plan set a goal of 20% of new homes in SEQ being social and affordable housing, which we’re far behind. 

This regional plan recommends inclusionary zoning to address this problem.

With all of this new precinct planning, this Council has a real opportunity to incorporate Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning to ensure we have genuine affordable housing supplies.

We hear the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and his chairs rebuffing any suggestion of this council creating affordable housing, with the constant claim that the Brisbane Housing Company is the council’s affordable housing arm.

Lets be clear that the BHC - Brisbane Housing Company was not set up by an LNP council and the BHC has received less than 20 million dollars from the Brisbane City Council since its inception in 2002. 

24 years ago.  

And 10 million of this was in 2002 as a setup investment, again not from an LNP council.

While the Brisbane Housing company has done a great job with the little money it has received, it only owns 1,700 homes across Brisbane. 

Lets put that in perspective with the SEQ target of 20% being social and affordable housing.

In total, only 3.6% of hundreds of thousands of dwellings within this Council’s local government area are public or community housing. 

That’s a long way from 20%.

How could we achieve 20% genuinely affordable homes in Brisbane?

One of the most effective and utilised affordable housing strategies around the world is mandatory inclusionary zoning policy.

The Greens utilize an international standard requiring 25% of all multi-unit developments with over 10 dwellings, to be provided to public and community housing providers.

This would provide many thousands of genuinely affordable homes. People could recover from bad situations, and find their feet in a mixed-income building, close to services and public transport.

Mandatory inclusionary zoning is used by hundreds of cities worldwide. Paris, London, the City of Sydney, and New York City are just a few examples. 

20% of all housing stock in London is either social, public or affordable housing

Across greater London, 44% of all new housing delivered in 2022 was some form of affordable, public or social housing. 

And inclusionary zoning is delivering about 30% of all new affordable homes in London.

Most French cities now have 20-25% inclusionary zoning for all dwellings.

Paris has seen social, public and affordable housing increase from 13% of the city to 26% over the last 20 years. 

The Paris City Council has set a new target of 40% affordable housing by 2035.

It is time this LNP council caught up with international standards and actually responded to the unprecedented housing crisis and utilised the planning instruments that are available to it.